Corey Patterson is awful
Posted by Andy on July 30, 2008
The last time I ripped a player, it caused a bit of a firestorm. Somehow I think I'll get less resistance this time.
Let me start off by saying that I have no reason to believe that Patterson is anything but a lovely human being, no reason to believe he used or uses performance enhancing drugs, and that I fully recognize that he has more baseball ability in his pinky than I have in my entire body.
But this guy is a bad baseball player and I don't understand why any team plays him.
So far this year, lowest batting averages among players with at least 200 AB:
Cnt Player **BA** AB Year Age Tm Lg G PA R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB IBB SO HBP SH SF GDP SB CS OBP SLG OPS Positions +----+-----------------+---------+---+----+---+---+--+---+---+---+---+--+--+--+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+--+-----+-----+-----+---------+ 1 Corey Patterson .183 208 2008 28 CIN NL 82 221 28 38 9 1 6 16 8 0 27 1 3 1 1 10 5 .216 .322 .538 *8 2 Eric Byrnes .209 206 2008 32 ARI NL 52 224 28 43 13 1 6 23 16 0 36 2 0 0 5 4 4 .272 .369 .641 *7/8 3 Kenji Johjima .209 268 2008 32 SEA AL 78 287 17 56 12 0 3 23 10 0 25 6 1 2 8 2 0 .252 .287 .539 *2/D 4 Austin Kearns .211 227 2008 28 WSN NL 62 261 25 48 8 0 5 27 27 0 43 6 0 1 7 1 2 .310 .313 .623 *9 5 Carlos Ruiz .211 213 2008 29 PHI NL 75 245 29 45 8 0 2 21 26 5 30 4 2 0 11 1 1 .309 .277 .586 *2 6 Paul Konerko .213 291 2008 32 CHW AL 78 335 33 62 11 1 9 35 37 2 58 5 0 2 12 1 0 .310 .351 .661 *3/D 7 Khalil Greene .215 386 2008 28 SDP NL 104 420 30 83 15 2 10 35 22 1 99 5 0 7 6 5 1 .262 .342 .604 *6 8 Jason Varitek .215 288 2008 36 BOS AL 87 324 21 62 16 0 8 31 32 1 82 3 0 1 10 0 0 .299 .354 .653 *2 9 Franklin Gutierre .216 245 2008 25 CLE AL 85 264 29 53 14 2 4 20 11 1 57 4 4 0 4 4 2 .262 .339 .601 *9/87D 10 Gary Sheffield .218 238 2008 39 DET AL 66 276 28 52 12 0 8 28 34 0 53 3 0 1 11 6 1 .322 .370 .692 *D/7
And how about lowest OBP for the same criterion:
Cnt Player **OBP** AB Year Age Tm Lg G PA R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB IBB SO HBP SH SF GDP SB CS BA SLG OPS Positions ----+-----------------+---------+---+----+---+---+--+---+---+---+---+--+--+--+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+--+-----+-----+-----+--------- 1 Corey Patterson .216 208 2008 28 CIN NL 82 221 28 38 9 1 6 16 8 0 27 1 3 1 1 10 5 .183 .322 .538 *8 2 Kenji Johjima .252 268 2008 32 SEA AL 78 287 17 56 12 0 3 23 10 0 25 6 1 2 8 2 0 .209 .287 .539 *2/D 3 Franklin Gutierre .262 245 2008 25 CLE AL 85 264 29 53 14 2 4 20 11 1 57 4 4 0 4 4 2 .216 .339 .601 *9/87D 4 Khalil Greene .262 386 2008 28 SDP NL 104 420 30 83 15 2 10 35 22 1 99 5 0 7 6 5 1 .215 .342 .604 *6 5 Mike Lamb .263 219 2008 32 MIN AL 70 240 18 50 10 2 1 28 13 3 29 0 0 8 3 0 1 .228 .306 .569 *5/D3 6 Freddy Sanchez .267 399 2008 30 PIT NL 98 426 47 97 16 0 7 42 12 0 50 3 6 6 10 0 1 .243 .336 .603 *4/D 7 Yuniesky Betancou .267 365 2008 26 SEA AL 101 378 36 93 23 2 3 30 6 0 22 1 3 3 12 2 2 .255 .353 .620 *6 8 Jose Vidro .269 292 2008 33 SEA AL 80 314 27 66 11 0 7 45 18 2 36 0 2 2 4 1 1 .226 .336 .605 *D/3 9 Eric Byrnes .272 206 2008 32 ARI NL 52 224 28 43 13 1 6 23 16 0 36 2 0 0 5 4 4 .209 .369 .641 *7/8 10 Miguel Olivo .276 207 2008 29 KCR AL 58 217 18 51 15 0 9 29 7 2 56 2 0 1 4 2 0 .246 .449 .725 *2D
Whoa! Nice lead for Patterson there. I'd say he's got it locked up.
This is a guy who was paid $9.9 million over the last 3 years. That's about average, but Patterson's not even close to being an average player. On his main page, his defensive stats suggest that he is a slightly below-average defender. Taken on the whole, all of this suggests that he must be one of the very worst full-time players in the majors. Why not cut him loose?
July 30th, 2008 at 1:15 pm
Don't you know, Cory Patterson has high levels of Veteranicity, Historicity, and Mentorocity! 😉
-m
July 30th, 2008 at 1:16 pm
He doesn't have historicity because he was never a star player, but I certainly like those definitions!
July 30th, 2008 at 1:20 pm
dont we excuse players like johjima who are catchers? no one ever complained that jim sundberg hit .199 and had an ops of 55(!) in 1975. well, maybe they did but i didnt have espn.com back then.
July 30th, 2008 at 2:44 pm
He gets played because every once in a while he shows the promise of more and he's still not yet 29 years old. I also think he's generally considered an above-average center fielder. (It's pretty difficult to assess defense from raw #s, but his raw #s look OK to me.) Granted, this season he's hit horribly, but presumably he's not really this bad. And if the Reds thought he was good enough to open the season, it would have been silly to give up on him just because he had a bad start. He's not starting anymore anyway.
July 30th, 2008 at 4:34 pm
How about because Korey's manager says things like this when Korey is in a 1-28 slump -
“Really? I did not know that. He hasn’t been striking out a lot so a long stretch of no hits is not as noticeable as when a guy piles up the strikeouts.”
Gee thanks Dusty.
July 31st, 2008 at 3:24 pm
Andy, HOW DARE YOU DISRESPECT COREY PATTERSON!?!?!?
Anyway, I agree with your sentiments, but I'll play devil's advocate. He's an exciting player, and while he may make some routine errors, he does make momentum changing plays in the field. He also scores a lot of runs (certainly an above average number), steals a lot of bases, and has a bit of pop. His OBP is pretty abysmal, though, and it's pretty hard to argue that someone hitting .183 with EIGHT (8) walks should be in the starting line-up, even on a hopeless team.
July 31st, 2008 at 3:25 pm
you are being much too easy on Patterson here. So he's the worst this season?
Look at how his numbers compare historically (too bad I could search for adjusted OBP)
Here are the worst OBP for outfielders in the history of baseball with at least 200 PA
**OBP** PA Player Year
0.155 206 Redleg Snyder 1876
0.197 427 Jim Lillie 1886
0.198 313 Stump Wiedman 1884
0.198 263 Charlie Waitt 1882
0.199 222 Sam Bowens 1965
0.199 281 Eddie Booth 1875
0.201 274 Adonis Terry 1885
0.201 234 Sadie Houck 1880
0.204 274 George Strief 1879
0.206 267 Kid Butler 1884
0.206 267 Count Gedney 1875
0.207 305 Ed Crane 1886
0.208 264 Sam Moffett 1884
0.214 472 John Cahill 1886
0.214 257 Fred Treacey 1876
0.215 247 Dave Eggler 1884
0.216 221 Corey Patterson 2008
0.216 417 Mike Slattery 1884
0.217 314 Ed Greer 1886
0.217 217 Mike Golden 1878
note the number of players pre-1900
how about the last 50 years?
**OBP** PA Player Year
0.199 222 Sam Bowens 1965
0.216 221 Corey Patterson 2008
0.221 243 Kenny Williams 1988
0.225 205 Bob Dernier 1989
0.226 239 Bill Robinson 1969
0.226 237 Jay Johnstone 1967
0.229 206 Ted Ford 1971
0.23 228 Andy Kosco 1970
0.236 230 Shawn Abner 1991
0.236 214 Jim Eisenreich 1988
July 31st, 2008 at 9:20 pm
Andy----
You ripped into Garret Anferson on July 19, since then he has hit .378 and slugged .574. Can we expect a similar "SOTD-bump" from Patterson?
August 1st, 2008 at 7:15 am
At one point in there, Anderson was batting 1000 with a slugging percentage of 4000. Cherry-picking examples doesn't prove anything.
August 1st, 2008 at 8:09 am
I'm sure spartanbill was just being funny and ironic.
August 1st, 2008 at 9:40 am
Actually, I was just aiming for ironic thanks.
I might as well point out that he has already moved up one spot on the Reds ACTIVE all-time HR list since yesterday.
August 1st, 2008 at 10:23 am
guffaw!
August 1st, 2008 at 11:47 am
In the past his SB totals have been good, but this year he has only 10, with 5 CS, for no net gain to the team (at best). A bad year all around.